1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to database systems and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for efficiently transferring web pages to a client through the use of database triggers.
2. Description of Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
One use of information handling systems is in the field of database management to support the storage and retrieval of information. In recent years there has been a considerable advancement in the use of database management systems to support transactions and distribution of information over the Internet.
One of the major shortcomings of web-based database applications is processing speed. Once the client requests a particular page of the web application, the web server starts constructing the web page by sending queries to the database server. The database server executes those queries and returns the dataset back to the web server and, finally, the web server draws the web page with the received data. The bottleneck usually lies with the database queries. For example, in many web applications, a single report page may use hundreds of different tables, and hundreds of queries to retrieve the necessary data from the database to draw a web page. Even powerful database servers require several seconds to draw the page per the client's request.
To minimize the processing time on the database server, various methods exist, such as caching the execution plans of the queries, minimizing tables, and using global ID schemas. These methods reduce the execution time on the database server, but they still require time consuming execution of the queries.